No one expects funeral doom bands to be prolific, but the apt, seven-year wait between Finnish pioneers of gorgeously rendered, oxygen-sucking misery Skepticism’s last album, Alloy, and their forthcoming opus, Ordeal - due out on September 18 via Svart Records - has been enough to have even their most stoic of fans curled up in a withdrawal-induced foetal ball.
Deciding that Ordeal couldn’t be confined to a studio recording, the five-piece decided to record it in front of a live audience in their home country last January, an experience that’s added new and deeper levels of atmosphere and emotional honesty to a 77-minute journey that progresses with the stately grace and heft of a spaceship drifting into the gravity well of the sun.
Thanks to the stoic people of Svart Records, we have an exclusive preview in the elongated form of The Departure, a 10-minute masterpiece of mourning that will hollow out your soul and then echo through the husks until time immemorial. Light a candle, abandon all hope and give yourself to The Departure Below!
Throw yourself upon Skepticism’s Facebook page here!
